WAUCHOPE - As is the case with everything, auctioneering has changed significantly over the past few years.
Auctions have taken place for a long time in many different realms. They are a staple in the agriculture world, used by ranchers to sell their livestock and by farmers to sell off their machinery. With many farmers retiring these days, auctions are in high demand.
Prior to the COVID years, a number of auctioneers began experimenting with a new concept – online auctioneering. That gave buyers an opportunity to bid without actually attending the auction. While some were bidding in person at auctions, others were bidding via their computers.
Many auction houses no longer use auctioneers. The items for sale were simply shown online, people bid and the last bid before the deadline was the lucky winner.
Although many enjoyed the simplicity of bidding this way, others missed the social event that auctions had become.
Dellan Mohrbutter is an auctioneer who resisted the temptation to take his services online. He has continued to hold to the value of mixing business with pleasure.
For years, he was a farmer and a cattleman, raising Charolais cattle. During that time, he developed the itch to be an auctioneer, including the interaction with people that it involved.
He went to Regina to take a course in auctioneering and developed his own unique chant, which each live auctioneer has.
He started in 2000. By 2007, he had exited the cattle business and a couple of years later, he retired from farming and concentrated solely on auctioneering.
He acknowledges that his refusal to become an online auctioneer has cost him sales. Many of today’s younger farmers, as well as the larger farm conglomerates, prefer the ease and simplicity of buying and selling online. But there are enough older farmers with smaller farms who prefer what the live auctions bring. That keeps Mohrbutter as busy as he desires.
Mohrbutter has some interesting memories from his years of auctioneering. He remembers a household auction where an elderly lady wanted to make sure that she was getting his attention. She stood by his side as he moved from article to article that needed to be sold.
Whenever she wanted to make a bid, she tugged on his pant leg. One item she especially wanted resulted in her almost pulling his pants down.
Memories like this – of the social, personal aspect of live auctioneering – are part of the reason Mohrbutter has dug in his heels when it comes to making the shift to online auctioneering. He knows that others prefer to bid online, and that’s OK with him. But he knows that, like himself, there are those who like auctioning the way it has been for a few thousand years, and that’s what he’ll do in the time that he has left as an auctioneer.
He will turn 80 this month and believes the day is coming very soon when he’ll have to close the auctioneering chapter in his life and leave his unique chant behind. But you’ll still likely see him showing up at auctions, enjoying the social interaction.
